A gazetteer is a dictionary of place-names. Gazetteers describe towns, villages, parishes, counties, rivers, mountains, population, and other geographical features. The place-names are usually in alphabetical order, similar to a dictionary.

Gazetteers may also provide:

Distances from nearby places.

Different religious denominations.

Major manufacturing works.

Canals, docks, and railroad stations.

Gazetteers are also helpful for determining the county jurisdictions used in the FamilySearch Catalog.

You can use a gazetteer to locate the places where your family lived and to determine the civil and church jurisdictions over those places. A sample gazetteer entry might be "Polesworth, a village and a parish in Atherstone district, Warwick. [It has] an Independent chapel, two Baptist chapels, and Church of England endowed schools."

Many places in England have the same or similar names. A gazetteer can help you determine which is the place you are interested in and describe its location.

An interactive map can act as a gazetteer. Use England Jurisdictions, 1851 to find information about and boundaries for counties, parishes, districts, probate courts, and other jurisdictions. England Jurisdictions, 1851 also provides an Ordnance Survey base map.

Finding Place-Names in the FamilySearch Catalog

The place-names used in the Locality Search of the FamilySearch Catalog are the names and spellings used in:

This gazetteer lists place-names as they were in the 1860s and gives distances from other nearby places, names of the church denominations in the area, historical background, and civil district.

To find which county a town is filed under, you may type the city or parish in the Place Search of the computerized FamilySearch Catalog. The computer will display a list of places with that name. With the microfiche version of the FamilySearch Catalog, you may look at the "see" references on the first few microfiche of the country in the Place Search.

Contents

Modern Place-Names

In 1974, England realigned its county boundaries and renamed many counties. More county boundary changes were made in 1996. For some research purposes, such as correspondence, you may need to identify modern county names for the area where your ancestors lived. Knowing the modern names is also helpful if you wish to find an ancestor’s town on a modern map. For a good atlas and gazetteer showing modern county names, refer to:

Mason, Oliver. Bartholomew Gazetteer of Places in Britain. Edinburgh, Scotland: John Bartholomew & Son, 1986. (FHL book 942 E5bb 1986.) Places are in alphabetical order. The town descriptions in the gazetteer will tell you where to find each locality on the maps included in the book.

Historical Place-Names

In addition to gazetteers, post office directories list places in a county and usually give the same type of information as gazetteers. For more information see England Directories.

The English Place Name Society has compiled studies of place-names for several counties in England. The Family History Library has the volumes which have been published. Most are indexed. They are listed in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:

Lewis, Samuel. A Topographical Dictionary of England. 4 vols. London: S. Lewis and Co., 1831. Free Name Search[1]; publisher's bookstore: Genealogical.com ($); FHL Collection 942 E5L 1996. Digital versions at Ancestry ($), British History Online. This gazetteer has historical and statistical descriptions of England’s counties, cities, boroughs, corporate and market towns, parishes, and townships. It tells what hundred a place is in. The library also has later editions of this set. (BYU Harold B Lee Library book DA 625 .L67 vol.1. Also available as an online resource in the library, and also on microfiche AC 1 .N56 1.1.2487.)

Gazetteers and similar place-name guides are found in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under one of the following:

ENGLAND AND WALES - GAZETTEERS

The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales is a substantial topographical dictionary first published between 1870 and 1872, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It contains a detailed description of England and Wales. Its six volumes have a brief article on each county, city, borough, civil parish, and diocese, describing their political and physical features and naming the principal people of each place.

References

↑Name Search at Genealogical.com is a comprehensive name index to 638 books and CDs published or reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Company (now Genealogical.com). For a complete list of the works included, see Publications in Name Search at Genealogical.com